Oh no! I got bored. Immediately…
I just arrived on your website. I see a headline. It’s okay. I skim the marketing copy. It’s meh. There are a few buttons, but they do not look very appealing. Should I click on one of them?
Wow so many options! Now I feel stupid. What do I do now? Maybe this page link? Meh, not what I was looking for. A second later, I’m getting bored. I leave your website and may never return.
You made me feel dumb and you lost me. Because I wasn’t sure what to do. I lost confidence. I felt lost. And you lost too: a chance to convert me into a trial, then a lifelong customer. What a waste.
Never let people feel this way when they experience your product or service.
Designing a motivating experience that intrigues me, empowers me and makes me feel that being on your site makes sense. It is easy. I want more. Here is how we do it:
The time-lapse problem
Both on and offline, not knowing what to do next is uncomfortable. Humans are constantly in search of stimulation. Often, our eyes find something. We give it attention, and bam!, emotions, excitement, and curiosity arrive.
If I am using your website or app and for a moment I don’t know what to do, I might feel stupid (a particularly strong emotion) driven by the lack of Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment, and decide to quit. I will choose other apps which will make me feel smarter.
Free will, free won’t
We’ve noticed that users can feel dumb if they don’t know what to do next. Famed psychologist Libet developed the idea that while we can’t always choose what we give attention to, we can choose to quit.
This is called free won’t.
It feels good to have an idea and to take action on it. Taking no actions feels lame, boring, or unproductive.
Don’t let your users exercise their free won’t.
Seamless activity loops is what we drive toward in building a series of desired actions. If each micro-decision can provide a clear path to the next desired action, with rewards and incentives finely tuned, then the user will experience something akin to a flow experience.
Investigating your design
Until you investigate your experience design in detail, you may be wrongly attributing outcomes to any number of problems your cognitively biased mind provides, simply arising in thought.
One way to begin training yourself to see problems in your own designs is to notice when you quit other experiences.
When do you leave Facebook? When does Instagram get boring? When do you stop opening new tabs in your Chrome browser? When do you stop answering emails?
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to your own designs actually begins in the wild. Once you’ve acquired this training, you can return to your own designs. A few years down the line you may nail it…
But, there is a much easier and time effective way to come to the best design. A design that engages your users from the start to end. From when they first see your product advertised, through to the moment that they have become your brand ambassadors. It is called Octalysis.
At The Octalysis Group, we can guide you to craft that ideal design. Or even design the full experience for you. Benefit from decades of Gamification and Human Focused Design experience and never have your users leave you again.
Don’t miss out on the lifetime value of that customer before they have a chance to learn what value you can add to their life.
Contact us now.
joris@OctalysisGroup.com
Managing Director
The Octalysis Group
